It's a new year, but some of the sticking points carry over. Let's proceed.
Orajestad 9 asks:
What addition moves can Rick Hahn make before Opening Day to make you feel more comfortable about the signings and trades he's made thus far this offseason?
And related from Josh:
If the Sox are really looking to fill the DH spot with Andrew Vaughn at some point and don't address the position in free agency. Is the front office thinking they solved the issue against right handed pitching with the addition of Adam Eaton alone?
The gaps are a bat for DH, another starter, a backup catcher and a high-leverage replacement for Alex Colomé. Addressing all those in some credible, unsexy form would at least be decent from this point forward. The pace of the entire market makes it difficult to overreact at this point, even if there are a lot of gaps remaining. Take the Mets, who were supposed to come out guns blazin' in the Steve Cohen era, and they too have slowed down after signing James McCann. That's why I'm not terribly concerned that the Sox are done adding bats of any kind, specifically lefties.
I wouldn't mind seeing that DH being able to cover left field or better, because Eloy Jiménez, Luis Robert and Adam Eaton all have a tendency to miss time, as does Leury García behind them.
Lew asks:
News on Moncada's Covid rehab?
Apparently he's looking for a Bichon Frise, so there's that.
But I haven't seen anything otherwise. I'm inclined to say no news is good news, but it's also possible that no news is a result of the specific circumstances. There's the matter of Moncada being a Spanish-speaking ballplayer who requires the assistance of a translator, so the beat reporters may not have a direct line to him. Also, Tony La Russa's hiring and subsequent legal troubles, and Adam Eaton's signing and previous clubhouse issues, have consumed a lot of the oxygen for White Sox conference calls.
I'm inclined to say Moncada will be fully recovered, but his short, erratic track record and predilection toward pained expressions provide natural reasons for caution in your optimism regardless of his COVID issues.
Mark asks:
There was a lot of angst mostly from Josh on the most recent podcast regarding the White Sox propensity for drafting college players. Yet Madrigal, Vaughn and Crochet seem to be worthy picks and they have clearly drafted more high school players the last 2 drafts. What should they have done differently?
They're worthy picks in and of themselves, but it sometimes gets hard to separate them from the team's history. There's nothing wrong with the Andrew Vaughn pick, except when you lump in Jake Burger, Zack Collins and Gavin Sheets, the Sox spent four first-day picks on guys who have to fight to stay off first base over a four-year period. And when the first three of them failed to hit enough to set imaginations ablaze, you're left with a pile of like players who can't really be moved.
That's what can make Vaughn seem a little less special. If the White Sox drafted C.J. Abrams, he wouldn't be a reminder that the Sox needed four tries to find a first baseman.
Madrigal represented a shift away from corner bats, but then they took Steele Walker in the second round and tossed him aside for Nomar Mazara. What's left is a pretty ugly draft history over a four-year period, two of which were after the start of a rebuild:
- 2015: Carson Fulmer (no second- or third-round pick)
- 2016: Zack Collins, Zack Burdi, Alec Hansen
- 2017: Jake Burger, Gavin Sheets
- 2018: Nick Madrigal, Steele Walker
All college players, all of whom couldn't afford slow starts without shedding stock. Madrigal turned out to be the only one who handled the fast track without barfing. That's not a great way to start amassing talent, especially when the international side isn't known as a path for adding talented teenagers, at least those who aren't Cuban.
The drafts of the last couple years have added a little more athleticism and upside, at least on the pitching front. They've taken some second-day stabs at prep position players, but the lack of a minor-league season made it impossible to know if there's any progress. That's how the White Sox got where they are, with low-minors talent that isn't compelling, and high-minors talent that only covers a couple spots on the diamond.
Andrew asks:
As you plan content for 2021, both written and podcast episodes, what kind of timeline for the major-league season are you assuming in your schedule?
It sounds like we should plan for a normal spring training, mostly because Major League Baseball can't point to government orders preventing the league from fully operating. If the NBA and NHL are going about their business after abbreviated offseasons, MLB doesn't have a viable excuse for not starting the season on time after a full winter. More fanlessness would result in revenue not captured, but legal action taken by the union would probably be costlier, especially since teams would lose TV revenue from the unaired games.
I think the biggest hurdle is spring training, and whether it's smart to have 1,000+ people arrive from all sorts of places and mix in a small geographic circle, especially if the bulk of them haven't been vaccinated. Perhaps we'll see teams report to spring training, but act as though they're alternate training sites.
Doug asks:
It looks like the Pirates want to dump salary. What might it take to get Joe Musgrove?
Hopefully not Gerrit Cole, which is how the Pirates acquired Musgrove. He just turned 28, he's got two years of team control, he's only thrown 120 innings once, with injuries in 2018 (shoulder strain, abdominal strain) and 2020 (tricep inflammation).
The package the Angels traded for Dylan Bundy -- four pitching prospects of non-note -- seems light, because Musgrove has been more effective. The Twins got Jake Odorizzi for 20-year-old Venezuelan shortstop Jermaine Palacios, who excelled in Low-A, but hasn't quite conquered High-A or Double-A in the two seasons with the Rays.
The equivalent player in the White Sox organization might be Lenyn Sosa, or at least what Sosa was at the end of the 2019 season. It's worth noting that Musgrove's second-year arb projection of $3.4 million is considerably less than Odorizzi's second-year tag ($6.3 million), which might add more teams to Musgrove's pursuit and raise the tag a little bit.
The White Sox traded Yordi Rosario to Pittsburgh for Iván Nova's last year, so the Pirates have some history of liking the White Sox's international signings. Speaking of which...
TorpedoJones asks:
Is Franklin Reyes still in the Sox org? I had forgotten about him until a recent trip down memory lane looking at key prospects from a few years back. If I recall, he had top-notch power potential but seemed to lack the hit tool to really utilize it.
Reyes missed the 2018 season due to Tommy John surgery, and James Fox said in August that Reyes had back surgery and may never play again. The Sox signed Reyes for $1.5 million, and they haven't gone after a Dominican teenager with that kind of money since.
On that note, I'm planning on putting together a resource for Sox Machine supporters that'll make this information a little easier to find. Stay tuned.
Asinwreck asks:
A recent article on whether the Dodgers might sign Trevor Bauer noted such a deal would put them over the luxury tax. It got me thinking that teams like the Dodgers and Yankees might be interested in dealing a productive veteran for relatively little (say, trading AJ Pollock for a Zack Burdi or Tyler Johnson) if that allowed them to sign a Bauer or LeMahieu and stay under the tax. Would this strategy make sense for a high-payroll team. If so, what trade candidates would you like to see the Sox pursue?
It'd be funny if the White Sox traded for AJ Pollock after signing Adam Eaton, given that Pollock's emergence is what made Eaton expendable in Arizona. Kenley Jansen is probably the guy the Dodgers would really like to get off their books, but while the White Sox could use a battle-tested high-leverage guy, Jansen costs $20 million and lost Dave Roberts' confidence.
Looking at the Yankees' payroll, Aaron Hicks checks off boxes as a switch-hitting fourth outfielder, but he's had injury issues, including an elbow that still isn't at full strength after Tommy John surgery. There's also Giancarlo Stanton, but ... nah.
Pollock is the best option of the outfielders, even if he is a righty who punishes lefties. I'd just hesitate to trade with the Dodgers, who seem to know what they're doing on these kinds of deals. Andy McCullough posted an article on The Athletic today noting that they turned Josiah Grey from an anonymous A-baller in Cincinnati to their top pitching prospect. They acquired him in the megadeal that sent Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp and Alex Wood to Cincinnati. Gulp.
If you're looking for a one-year rental DH, Brandon Belt enters the last year of his deal at $17.2 million. He's never hit more than 18 homers in a season, but he showed increased power last season, and I'd be curious what he could do outside of a stadium that suppresses lefties with only moderate thump.
